Hot and Ironing…

There is a delightful breeze coming through the window of my office right now, unlike the last three nights, when it has been hot as fucking hell in here and I remember again why I consider putting a room air conditioner in here every year around this time. And it was only in the 90s yesterday…last year, it hit 109 degrees during September (knock on wood; it’s only September 1, so it’s still possible). This room holds heat like crazy and the sliding glass door is a combo of unusable and unreachable, which is silly. Need to remodel this room with A/C and a slider on a remote. I guess one or the other. It does cool down at night…outside…but not in here. Bad design and/or no insulation in the walls. Certainly we didn’t see any when we did all the fixes to the rain damage. Houses built in the 1970s…they still didn’t build them well. So enjoy the breeze (and the day off of work!) because it’ll be gone and/or hot as hell in a few hours.

So it’s really hard to iron when it’s hot, y’all. I don’t even try until 8 PM and then I sit in here and sweat anyway because the fan can only be pointed below the level of the ironing board, or I’d have pieces flying everywhere. Plus the iron is putting off heat in a room that is already warm. Just since I started writing this, the room temperature has gone up 2 degrees. Anyway, on Friday, I came home after ceramics and ironed for 3 hours.

I was working on all the body pieces and the stuff around or attached to the main figure.

When I went to bed, I was missing some hair pieces, but I found them in the trash bin (which is why I don’t throw that out until the quilt is finished). Then Saturday night, I did the head and some other stuff around it.

I did an explosion and one of the Starlink things and part of the swamp. Here’s a better view of the head…

So many of Musk’s things blow up. All the pencil cups and the stapler and tape are there to keep the weight of the fabric from pulling the teflon sheets onto the ground. As it gets heavier with more pieces, this gets to be a harder balance and I need more weights.

Last night, I worked on the swamp and got all the base parts done; just the trees are left on that.

There’s some embroidery of the police/ICE badges to go on later. This puts me in the 1000s, so about 300 pieces left to go. Two or three nights? We’ll see. I mean, I could finish it today if it weren’t supposed to be 95 degrees in here and I didn’t have a thousand other things to do. Next up? Input grades. I think I finished most of the school stuff yesterday though. Besides inputting them. Oh wait, and advisory. Fuck. Forgot about that. Ugh. I have not fully found my routine yet. It takes me about 6 weeks usually. And Friday was super stressful for trying to get all the things done. This week is back-to-school night, plus two morning meetings, plus 7 new kids (ugh) and 3 kids moving classes and whoa…just found the fly yesterday that was buzzing everyone in the house. Either it died or Bowie killed it and didn’t eat it. Mmmm. Dead fly.

I need to try to get to ceramics today (oh my, it’ll be warm)…I got things attached and underglazed and felt really positive about this project that is more than a little stressful at the moment.

Not even sure how I’m going to get it in the kiln without breaking it…again. Ah well. Hope survives. I need to underglaze the flesh, fix more cracks, and fix the one piece of the flag that keeps popping off, which is better than the entire flag popping off, which is what happened last week. So frustrated with this right now. Remind me to do some smaller, less complicated things next. Really. OK, still need to finish the head. Ha!

I crazily hiked on Saturday, by myself, at like 5:15 PM (still 90 degrees, I think, but there was a breeze).

Three miles. Then I can eat things that might kick my blood sugar up…because they are less likely to have that jump. Well, they should be, but I ate too many fries and blew that. Ah well. Still working on it. Definitely more under control than it was three months ago, but the blood sugar still crashes kind of randomly at times, like last night. No reason. Definitely think my Saturday night glass of wine does it, but I didn’t have any last night and was still awakened at 4:30 in the morning with a low. Ugh. Sometimes if I get up (to pee and check my blood sugar with a finger prick), it’ll pop back up, like it thinks I’m getting up (no fucking way I’m getting up at 4:30 AM; you’d think my body would know that), but then it crashed again an hour later. Fuck me. I’m sure eating skittles at 5:30 AM is not a good life choice, but I don’t have another solution at the moment. And when I asked the diabetes nurse about it, she didn’t either. She wanted me to get up and have a real snack, and I’m like, no, not doing that unless it’s really bad and continuing to crash. I’m TIRED. I work during the day…with KIDS. I need a full night’s sleep. And I already reduced my insulin…so if it happens again this week, I’ll reduce it again. Supposed to be contacting doctor about that stuff, but I haven’t yet…maybe this time.

So the baby owl finally got chased off by mom…well, or did she? She has finally stopped hungry squawking though…but the other night, I hear noises on the slope and then a screech, so I look out there and two owls are in the tree outside my office window.

The lower one is looking up at the other one…and is smaller. Might be baby? This was the same night but I think that’s one of the parents, probably mom.

They were staring intently down on the slope, where this opossum was digging around…

I’m totally OK with the owls prowling the slope. I’ve got gophers and they’re tearing it up. Annoyingly.

I mentioned it was hot, yeah?

Cat evidence of temperatures.

And there’s this…

Also, let’s talk about how many of them are white men. But sure, y’all will pick on the one thing you think made them do it. We could just take the guns away from the mentally ill (well, honestly, mostly everybody), and that might help.

OK. I don’t have to work today! Well, I do, but not all day in a classroom. This is a short but painful week; I will be mostly dead by Friday. Good times! It will also be cooler by Friday, which will help. It’s September! A fun month for school…where things change daily for no apparent reason sometimes. Also we think our A/C at school might be out. They’ll have to fix it quickly because there’s a new state law about maximum temperatures in classrooms. But the rest of the day, I can read, iron, plant things (I did some of that already), anything I can stand in the heat. Working on a wool quilt has been out (ha!). I keep thinking I’ll start the embroidery on the border flowers on Homegrown, but I’d have to have the whole quilt on my lap, so that is not happening. I’ll just keep sewing little things down on blocks I can hold in one hand. I have a huge to-do list in my bullet journal, but I won’t get most of it done; let’s be real. It is nice to have a day off…thank you unions! And no, I didn’t make it to the protest march today because I didn’t know about it until too late, but yes! Protest the bullshit! Also the Zoom yesterday…I’m so glad that the closing ceremonies for my dual show at the Virginia Quilt Museum will be during Spring Break, so I’m planning on going out there and meeting my co-exhibitor, Lena Meszaros. Should be an awesome show, opening in January…come see us in the last week of March!

You’d Be Wrong…

At some point in the week, I’m tired enough to sleep even with the heat, the panting dog, and the squawking baby owl, not to mention the overactive brain. Last night was that. Only two days in. Hmmm. I also spent over three hours on art yesterday, which was delightful. I’m sure I’ll pay for it later with stuff I have to plan and grade. Actually, totally yes, because we start a new unit next week and it’s not really planned at all. Minor issue. Panic much? Yeah maybe…like right now. But sure, otherwise, besides the blood sugar crashes in the middle of the night, I’m doing fine (adjusted meds; hoping that solves it). For some definition of fine.

The ironing is going very slowly because crazy art brain drew some tiny shit in this piece…this group of five people for example is 5×8″.

Pretty much ironing them took an hour. I also got them ironed down to the background in that hour though.

I also put the stars on the flag and did the volcanic bit on the right. But mostly those tiny people.

You know I put the Vax guy in there because of RFK and the measles vax, but now it looks like they want to pull the COVID vax? These people are idiots. You’d think after the Black Plague and the health disaster that was the Middle Ages that we’d have learned that science knows shit that brain worms and dementia patients do not. You’d be wrong.

Here’s last night…looks pretty damn similar.

In over an hour, I did the arm behind the people on the right, which was fussy as hell, plus started the graveyard on the left…also fussy due to all the letters, which aren’t matched up, because a lot of them separated from the paper, and then some are missing, who the fuck knows where they are. I think we’ll move the living room couch some day and find a pile of fused pieces that belong to 50 different quilts.

SLOW as molasses on a cold day. I’m in the 400s, but barely. The graveyard is at least one more night, maybe two. Then the Statue of Liberty being stillborn. Then the swamp. I love this stuff; don’t get me wrong. I love putting all these little pieces together and ironing them down and making a picture. This is bliss.

I also went to ceramics yesterday. Still fighting the torso, trying to get it to stay together. But also I gave the head some teeth and carved the ears.

I want to build a tree off the top but I kind of need to get the rest of the stuff out of the way and fired to do that. It might need to be a separate piece. It’ll be so damn fragile. I need to think that through. I think I could just make weird heads from here on out. Maybe.

From the book I’m reading, Vampires of El Norte by Isabel Canas.

It’s an interesting story, although so far less about the vampires and more about the ‘Yanquis’ taking Mexican territory in the southwestern US (formerly Mexico). Which is an enlightening view, considering current politics. I loved how that sentence was written.

Oh my, I currently have so many books out from the library and so little time in which to read them. Sigh. I’m working on it.

OK. Today, we are in the middle of diagnostic testing in reading and math, which sucks, because the kids hate it and it takes too long. So that’s how we’re starting every day. Then I am giving a short quiz about AI and when you can use it in the classroom (meeting that problem head on this year so it’s not a surprise for kids when they get a zero), plus trying to get them to consider planning as a skill. Fun times with that. Next week, we start actual science, which will be a relief. Maybe. There are definitely some bad behaviors they learned last year that will have to be ripped out of them, but in general, they’re a decent batch of kids. A few I’d like to leave on Survivor Island, but that is always the case. Then pilates after school and ironing after dinner. I need to grade stuff in there somewhere, plus finish the vocab slides, plus plan for next week. Somehow. I might be missing that part of my brain. Gonna go look for it.

Totally Forgot…

Hmmm…there’s nothing like waking up on a Monday morning, getting ready for school, sitting down to the computer, and realizing there was something you were supposed to do over the weekend and you totally forgot about it. Oh yeah. I totally remember how school feels. Like that. Like this morning. Damn. It’ll be fine. Really. It will. There’s always tonight. Sigh. Even yesterday, I knew I had work, some work, and normally I would have done it in the afternoon, but I didn’t feel like succumbing to school on the weekend yet, so I didn’t do it until 8:30 PM. Not the best plan. Oh well. It’s done now. I will go write this other thing on the to-do list (which I made Friday and did not look at all weekend). Also, there’s nothing like food prepping a variety of breakfasts to get you through the next two months, and not wanting any of them when you get up in the morning. Score! Fun times.

OK, first full week of school with kids. Always a challenge. I think I mostly prepped today’s activity on Friday, which is good, because Advisory is only 6 minutes and I have to be on duty at 8:30 and I’m rolling late already. On Friday, I was amazing! I made it halfway to school before I remembered I hadn’t taken my insulin. OMG, yes, I had to turn around and drive back, so I didn’t have the day prepped, and first period suffered. I too suffered. I’m going to take my insulin right now. I used to take it at night and it was much easier to remember, for some reason. Morning brain foggy? Sure. That’s probably it.

I am still chugging along on the trimming…closer to done. Here’s Friday night, when we were going to go out to see a band, and that totally didn’t happen…

I can see some of the main figure pieces in there. Saturday night, I cut some more…

Saturday, we vacuumed the whole house, washed all the cat bedding, and I got the special pleasure of washing all the cats. Fleas. Ugh. The meds the Man was using were totally not effective. More meds are coming, but blech. It was a lot of work. So I’m glad Nova still loved me enough to sit with me. She made the most amazing yowling sounds during her bath. I think I started cutting out the flag there.

Sunday night, I’m definitely in all the little people and the gravestones.

And some veins and stuff from the main figure. I can see the bottom of the box, but I still think I’m two or three days away from done. I have almost 12 hours in at this point.

I went to ceramics on Sunday afternoon (hence part of the work chaos)…I need to get this part of the torso in the kiln, so I need it to stop breaking. Fuck me. Here’s me with everything laid out to reattach and reglaze.

Luckily, there was only one other person in there. She was spread out even more than I was. I have over 75 hours into this piece. Crazy. That’s the head in the front, under the plastic. I’m hoping to work on it today. But also to finish fixing things. I think there’s only one unattached thing right now (knock on wood), but some glazing needs to happen. Depends on how crowded it is. Hard to do with a lot of people around.

I did a little stitching down of things on Friday…with Nova’s droolio help.

I am really hoping to get these all stitched down soon. Too many other things to do. I delivered two quilts for a show up in Newport Beach on Sunday…the show opens September 12, but I can’t get there for the opening (it’s a Friday night…can we talk traffic?). So I cleaned those up, put a label on one, cut slats, packed them up, etc.

I hiked 3+ miles on Saturday…trying to make sure my blood sugar stays down for date night! And they moved the trail…

I hadn’t been here for a while and the entire middle section of the trail moved…not a little bit, but a lot. Weird. Maybe there was a sensitive environment over by the river that they were trying to protect? I could probably figure that out eventually.

This crazy ass caterpillar was in my yard this morning…it’s apparently a Rustic Sphinx moth…

Or it will be, if a bird doesn’t get it. It does seem like it’s ready to cocoon itself. Massive.

OK. School. I’m already getting texts this morning. Fun times. Teaching safety today. Then going to ceramics, then doing the work thing I forgot to do this weekend. I took pictures of all the kids and I need to put names on them. Ugh. It’s fine. I do it every year. It’s just time-consuming. Useful though. Helps me learn names and faces. Time to go. Get out of here. Go to school. No really, go.

Remember Your Why!

Heyo. It’s halfway through…well, there’s one more prep day and then kids. That’s the hard part, although the first few days aren’t too bad…just a lot of talking. I could do without that. My voice could also do without it. I’ve actually enjoyed the last day and a bit in my classroom, because for the first year in a long time, I’m not panicking. I’m not unpacking everything out of a locked cabinet because they used my room over the summer, and I don’t have a lot of newbies to deal with, so I’m doing things that have waited for years. I moved some stuff in my room to be more logical. I put together a shelf thing I brought from home two years ago. I actually looked at the bulletin boards I never finished for 8th grade (I only looked at them; it’s OK). It’s been pretty chill. Hopefully that bodes well for the new year. Today I have a meeting and I need to copy stuff (the copier is not so chill, but that is always the case), but otherwise, I’m going to pilates. Yesterday I went to ceramics. Almost like a normal person. They let us sign up for afterschool duty for the first time ever, and I got an easy one. I never get an easy one…I’m always walking a long way because my classroom is closest to the front of the school, so I get the crappy duties, while other people waft through the easy ones for years. I get the same ones over and over again. But this year, I picked the easy one. I chose. I know, it’s silly, but let someone else do the light or the crosswalk or the bike rack. It’s time. I’m sure next year, I’ll get assigned something else, but the new principal wants to do things this way and I’m going with the flow. There are some things where I’m not going with the flow, in typical Kathy fashion. But whatever. I do my job and I do it pretty well most of the time. And when I don’t, it’s because I’m tired and burnt out. So yeah. Aiming away from that feeling this year.

Artwise, I haven’t had a ton of time each evening. Things like cooking and dishes…not so fun, but have to be done, ya know? And less time at home affects that. Always, it’s a bit of a shock to go back to the long days, although we are still in that sweet spot when I can come home and NOT work (well, I did on Monday). I can sit and read or stitch a little. Or go to the ceramics studio. I’m still breaking things on the torso. So frustrated with it at the moment, but I’ll get there. I’m building a crazy head for it though.

I’m gonna need room for the tree on the head though; it won’t fit on my shelf. Problematic. I’ll figure it out.

Monday’s staff meeting was long and mostly boring. Some new info, but they read the slides to us. And the ones they didn’t read to us were small and hard to read. But they won’t give us the slides until the end of the meeting, because they don’t want us on our computers. But there are still people on their computers. So I drew for the first hour or so.

I can’t just sit in meetings. My brain doesn’t work that way. It needs entertainment. This was good for that. The next hour or so, I read my book on my phone. I did listen. I heard most of the things. I just wasn’t particularly engaged. A lot of it is stuff I already know. It’s hard, because we have so many new teachers who know nothing but I don’t need to hear all that again, but we also have a new principal and some fairly new assistant principals who don’t know or remember how things work here. Like there’s a reason we don’t let kids in the hallway behind our classrooms. We used to and it was a behavior disaster. So now we have to deal with that again. Whatever. I won’t be responsible for the hallway; I already told them why. They can deal with it.

Certain parts of the quiltmaking process look the same every night. I mean, I can tell the difference, but when all I cut out are tiny pieces, the piles don’t change much in an hour. I think I’m in the 900s mostly? Going backwards…so not even halfway done. So here’s Monday night, right before I started cutting out the swamp trees.

And here’s last night, as I start cutting out the people in the swamp.

Still some swampy bits in the top bin, but there’s progress. I can see it. I’ll be here for a while though.

I’ve been stitching this stuff down all summer…in bits and pieces.

Most of the wool pieces are on…I think there’s a few more, but mostly I’m appliqueing cotton now. Which is maybe faster, IDK. And after they’re stitched down, they all need embroidery. I’ll be here for a long while.

We are back to one juvenile owl, I think. I could have sworn I heard a second, but I’m not seeing it, so I feel sorry for this lonely. It’s very loud.

That’s the moon, believe it or not.

It’s started flying around and squawking from other trees, so we are a few days to weeks out from it leaving. It’s weird how loud they are as babies and how mostly fucking silent they are as adults. They do squawk as adults, but it’s different and mostly threat related. And it’s usually just once, not all night. I apologize to the neighbors. A little.

OK, I have a morning meeting to deal with team stuff, plus meet a new teacher for some of our special needs kids. I get to ask why I have paraprofessional support in one class with only one kid who needs it when I have another class with six of them and no support (that actually goes over the 20% mark, so they will have to support in there…they just don’t know it yet). The email thread back and forth yesterday about one of the kids with the admin in charge of scheduling them ended badly. I’m just not going to sit and not say anything when what they’re doing is not best for the kids. Or me, for that matter, or honestly, the poor para who is sitting there with only one kid to help…which is fine if the kid needs that. I’m just curious if there was thought behind it, because last year, there wasn’t.

Then pilates after school…my body will appreciate that, even if my blood sugar doesn’t necessarily go along with it. Transitioning to school and stress and a different schedule has been interesting. I did very well yesterday. Let’s not talk about the other three days around it. It’s fun. My doc wants me to check in with a nurse once a month about the diabetes, and I’m like sure, here’s my first question about crashing sugar in the middle of the night (again). They have not called yet. Probably trying to decide which nurse will have to deal with me. I’m having positive results…I’m hoping to keep that going as school really goes. September is the best test of it…it’s usually absolute daily chaos. Then after that, I get to read and stitch and cut things out. Bliss. Remember your why! (teacher in joke)

Meetings…

First official Monday of the school year. Yesterday was the first Sunday and I totally ignored it…went to ceramics, prepped breakfasts (OK, that’s not really ignoring it), cut stuff out, stitched some things down. OK, I also did laundry and grocery shopping, so still not ignoring it…just not sitting down at the computer and sending emails. I did that Saturday briefly…wait, no, I did that yesterday. I so often end up in charge of things that I’m wondering, when I’m retired, if I will miss that. I will probably find something else to be in charge of. It is the way of my people.

Still need to get used to getting up at 6:30 in the morning and functioning. Not there yet. We night owls have a hard time with normal work hours. I do anyway. Today is an all-morning meeting about things, then nothing in the afternoon but classroom and prep. I’m sure I will have a few meetings pop up; they always do, but I’m going to try to leave everything at school for the rest of this week. I can do that for one week, right? Then my weekly emails from my team start, sent on Sundays. No grades until next weekend; that’s a plus, but I will have to do rosters and that stuff. Let’s hope there’s no other crazy stuff about to rear its ugly head. Here’s my team; apparently this is our 10th year together…

Mostly we get along. No really, we are like any group in that there are people who do certain things, and we work really well together and support each other, but sometimes, we need to isolate. So we do. That’s probably how we made 10 years.

I ironed Friday night; I really thought I’d finish, but then I looked at the clock and it was midnight and I was tired (up at 5:30 AM y’all)…so I stopped.

With about 5 planets to go…

So I did finish ironing on Saturday, despite having a long, mostly unproductive day, wallowing in Kitten missing. I’m still doing that daily…she was so tiny at the end and I held her until the end. And like I said before, here I am, in her space. Bowie keeps coming in and looking for her. Ugh. It’s fine; I’ll get used to her not being here. Maybe. So here’s the 187 fabrics I used in this quilt…

I love to sort by color. And here’s what I’ll be working on for the next week or so…trimming all of those.

I started that Saturday night as well.

Didn’t get very far; did another hour last night though.

It never looks like much at this stage. I’m going backwards through all the pieces, unless I flipped the pile at some point (which I did). But right now, I’ve cut out most of the planets, the stars, the sun, and I’m working on the spacey pieces in the sky. I barely started the barn owl. It’ll be a while. But it’s delightfully relaxing to sit on the couch and bingewatch stuff and not have to think too hard about anything. The sitting will help with the first two weeks of exhaustion too. Seriously.

I’m making a very strange head with a tree coming out of it for the ceramic sculpture I started in November.

Still needs eyes and stuff. Ears. Maybe. Yeah. Ears.

And I actually drew at dinner.

I’m going to have to start hiking on Saturday afternoons again so I can eat the dinner I want to eat. Revised. Blood sugar was high all day and then crashed Sunday AM at about 3. Fun times. When my body decides to be logical about how it deals with food, I’ll let you know. I think I’ve got it, and then it’s like, NO. You don’t.

Always true.

OK, meeting, then prep, then other meeting, then meeting here about trees, then collapse with a book. Then cut things out and repeat. Well, I don’t have to meet about trees again, but I’m sure tomorrow will be more meetings, just not full-school meetings in the library. For 3.5 hours. Ugh. Remind me to skip long meetings in retirement (which is still years away, but I’m still gonna think about it) unless they’re about things I love.

Remember Fabric

Summer Break is officially over; ironically, summer in Southern California is just beginning (it was like 97 degrees yesterday). We’ve got at least two months of ugh weather, depending on how bad the apparently nonexistent climate change wants to make it. At least I’ll be in air conditioning during the day, right? With 140 kids. It’s fine. I’m totally not ready and had to be up at an ungodly hour this morning…it was early enough that the baby barn owl hadn’t gone to sleep yet.

It was light out by the time I got out of the shower. I’m not feeling positive about today. I know some people totally get into the first day back, they’re all hyped up. I’m an introvert. A million people in the mall (yes, we are meeting in a mall on the first day) is not my idea of fun. Honestly, talking to people at 7:30 in the morning is not my idea of fun. They give us popcorn and soda (can’t have those) and then the new guy posted all the treats he has for us, and I can’t have any of it…it’s either chocolate or sugar or both (I’m allergic to chocolate, if you didn’t know, and diabetic). So whatever. I already have the nutrition menu pulled up for our lunch options, so I know the carb issues. How does a salad have so many carbs in it? Sigh. And that doesn’t even count the dressing. So I bring my stitching with me for the morning part, and I have a book on my phone, snacks in my bag, ready to walk if the blood sugar alarm goes off. Wearing my new school year shirt (we had to go in early and pick one up). I’ll be OK next week when the kids come. Just not a fan of the adulting part (the part with the hundreds of adults). And I get to be one of the first people to talk at our meeting this afternoon. I actually don’t care about that part. It works OK after so many years of doing it. Get up in front of a hundred people and talk? Whoopdidoo. Got it.

Here’s baby owl and a parent…

I’ve had a hard time being in the studio the last few days. Kitten is supposed to be in here. When she was an actual kitten, she was in here…

That’s my old office chair. I’m three chairs past that one now, I think. They’re always covered in cat fur though. Already just hanging out with me. Sigh. Poor baby. Miss her. Maybe I’m the poor baby in this equation.

So I spent a bunch of time futzing with Spargo stuff in the living room yesterday instead. I still have a million things to stitch onto the borders of Homegrown…

And then all the embroidery. I then checked on some of the other in-progress Spargos and cut out pieces for another month of the mushroom one (just finished a mushroom book…seemed appropriate), reminded myself I was close to done on one of the forest blocks, and remembered that the critter blocks are next on the embroidery list when I finish the Rooted trees…think I’m on June or July with that one, so another three? I think. I appreciate the brainlessness of following someone else’s pattern sometimes.

I did iron in here: two hours yesterday and two and a half the day before. I know it’s hard for you to see the difference between the days, but I can. Here’s Wednesday night’s progress…

Made it through all the swamp trees and maybe a little past that…looks like there’s two rockets in there.

Then yesterday…

I did all the space stuff…well the ‘sky’ stuff, which is the big blue and purple pieces you see, but not the planets and stars and sun…that’s all that’s left. About 100 pieces. Complicated because I try to decide what each planet looks like in terms of color, but not super hard like all the people pieces. I should be able to finish tonight and then start cutting them out. A good part of the process for the start of the school year…sitting on the couch and bingewatching a show the Man is calling “Call of the Midwife in India”, which it kind of is: The Good Karma Hospital. Light fare, but about helping people, certainly, which is what I need right now.

I was reading a book by T. Kingfisher, one of her shorter soldier series based on old stories (I liked the second better than the first, which was based on House of Usher)…and she wrote…

That’s definitely from the second one. They are definitely dark. And in the acknowledgements, even better…

I’m amused by that. The first is What Moves the Dead; the second book, which both of these quotes are from, is What Feasts at Night. The third comes out this fall.

When it’s hot, cats flop.

Nova makes biscuits. It’s adorable. Bowie is less adorable, but I still like him.

OK, damn, I have to leave in 15 minutes. Ugh. I did make it to ceramics on Wednesday, but it was packed, so instead of trying to get the big torso out, I worked on the head.

This thing will never be done.

And as we go back into the school year, one run by AI apparently (even in my district, they are pushing it)…see in June, when school gets out, what happens to the graph?

I am so amused. And not. Ah well.

OK. Back to the crowd in my head and my personal space. Remember to keep fabric at the forefront. Remember Kitten. Finish ironing tonight. All good.

On Time Is What I Say It Is…

Oh yeah. Again. Lost days. I can’t remember WHY yesterday was a lost day, but it was. It wasn’t. I did things. I might not remember what I did, but I did things.

The current quilt: I’m trimming Wonder Under…

It’s remarkably slow.

I’ve made it halfway as of last night…

And it’s taken almost 5 hours. There’s two more yards to cut out. Just a lot of smaller complicated pieces. I won’t finish before I go on my residency. I’ll probably take the remainder with me, just as brainless filler. Along with other things. All the things.

I met with friends on Thursday and did some stitching on this…

I worked on it last night too, and it’s almost done. I’m taking it with me next week too. Like I said; I’m taking everything. Just moving the whole stash up to the cottage and then bringing it all back. Not really. But it kinda feels that way.

I thought I had finished all this until I was packing it up and realized the gun on the tank is not glazed.

In reality, I’m gone for a week and we’ll see where it’s at when I get back. This hand has broken off more times than I can say…it’s slightly lower than the board and the board doesn’t fully support it.

Stupidity on my part. Hopefully it will survive the next week. I am taking some clay with me…one thing that’s formed that I started carving into like three months ago. Another slab of clay to make something else to carve. I need to make the wet box today for that.

The girlchild is here for a long weekend. She cooked us dinner last night, but there is always time for Simba.

He likes it.

I screenshot this because I like it…

I actually have been trying not to use the word beautiful to describe people or smiles or eyes or hair or whatever. I’m not perfect at that though. But yeah, beautiful is not something I’ve ever been…and I’m OK with that. Or pretty honestly. And right now, I have another hole in my boob and an allergic rash from the adhesive patch and a scratch from Kitten. Oh, and acne at age 58! Ah well. I forgot to wash my face one night. So there we are.

Today. Today is packing and organizing and trying to be ready to leave tomorrow. Plus an art opening down in San Ysidro. And getting the office ready so Kitten can be in here without my carrying her out to the litter tray and food 5 times a day (yes, that is what I am doing at the moment.). Hopefully next week, I’ll be able to get lots of fun things done. And maybe blog on time (it’s my schedule, so it’s on time is what I say it is.). And maybe just be an artist for a week. I food prepped yesterday to help with that. I don’t need to think about what food; I just need food. Yeah. Looking forward to this, even though I am also anxious about it. That’s how the brain works. Art brain is racing forwards and the rest of my brain is trying to make sure there’s enough fabric. And it’s scoured. Crazy, right?

Refill the Cup

I really hate my ironing board. I would like a new one, one that doesn’t have sharp metal feet that grab my toes. One that is stable and doesn’t threaten to fall over. That said, when I’ve tried to find ironing boards in the past, they’re even more tippy and unstable than this one…this one was my grandmother’s, I think. It’s ancient. I put a heavy board on top that I use for ironing quilts together, because I need a larger space. At the moment, I have to move it around a lot because I’ve been trying to clean up in here and it’s problematic…I can’t put fabric on one shelf where it used to be, because one of two cats keeps peeing on it. I’m pretty sure it’s the old lady, but it might be the teenaged boy…they regularly are vying over the space. Probably the old lady. I even had piled some towels up that I was using to cover the fabric bins there, and then she peed on those. So. Yeah. I’m having to store bins on the floor and this room is not very big anyway…with two desks, a table, three bookshelves, a computer, a sewing machine, and all my fabric (well, not really ALL my fabric…that’s funny), it’s just crowded. The ironing board is always open and I move it around for what/where I need to use it. And every time I search for a new one, I get sidetracked by options and reviews and can’t make a decision. Because there isn’t an ironing board store I can go to and look at them (OMG I am old), so I have to do it all online, and the thought of trying to return an ironing board makes me break out in hives. So there’s that. But we might be there.

So the stupid stuff, eh? Overwhelming. But I could focus on the big fat ugly bill or Alligator Alcatraz and why we think it’s OK to treat HUMANS that way or the campers missing in Texas after the floods (look! God took the white Christian girls! See, it’s not any better, is it? It doesn’t matter what the kids look like or where they come from…it’s not OK.). Sigh. Certainly didn’t do much celebrating yesterday. My country is broken. OK, it always was broken. Now it’s just more in your face about it. So I’m trying to live my tiny life in the middle of all that. Plus this week, the Man will hear about a job (yes please) and I have a biopsy (ugh) and the girlchild is coming to visit (yay) and I need to pack for my residency (yikes). It’s not the chillest week in the world. My response to that is to read more books. And try to clean and fix more things. With the help of the Ex, the sprinklers are now back up and running. I tried but there needed to be more things fixed than the one I did (it was a valve). The two sprinklers that really weren’t working were totally corroded inside (ah, hard water)…so replacing those (and blowing all the dirt through the system) helped immensely.

This was a big achievement. I’ve had this on my list for months. I replaced one thing and then nothing worked. Sigh. I tried to patch the gap on the deck too, but I couldn’t get the caulk to move. Might just be too old? Frustrating though. So I think I’m going to Home Depot later. Fun times. I ran some errands on Thursday (waited until rush hour like an idiot) and ran into a former student, a not-pleasant reminder of him. I had totally blocked him and his entitlement and his annoying parents (mom mostly) from my mind, and now I need to reblock him. It’s OK. He’s a kid. Even as an adult, I won’t need to deal with him…and maybe he’ll get a clue by then. He’s smart, just spoiled.

So artwise, I’ve been sort of efficient. I’ve made it to the ceramics studio more times than usual, which is good.

A bunch of stuff fell/broke (I think it gets bumped on the shelf) and I had to fix a lot, but I got the greens done. Went back yesterday and reattached and reglazed stuff that broke, but that damn hand broke off again.

I’m close though. Almost there. Honestly, it’s glazed except for the flagpole and reglazing all the broken stuff.

I just need to finish it and get it in the kiln. Like this week. Hopefully.

I pinbasted my Sue Spargo Folk Tails, which has been done since 2020? I think? Seriously.

Mostly I hadn’t done it yet because I wanted to finish the bird one first (the bigger one) before stashing a bunch of safety pins in something that would just sit in a pile for a while. It’s a challenge to quilt this…mostly because I need to go AROUND everything. Not hard, just a pain. So it’s next on my list to finish this summer. But before I do that, I’m trying to piece together the improv piece I did on Zoom with Irene Roderick…

It’s all these random shapes that need to fit together, and then I need to make it into a rectangle shape. So I worked on that yesterday. I have it all in three pieces at the moment, with a freaking Y seam (not the first). Almost there. This is so not my style, and I realized at Quilt National that all the Irene people’s quilts look similar, so I’m deciding how to make it mine. I’m trying to finish this so I can take the design board on my residency next week. Whatever gets it done, right? I could probably finish putting the top together today.

Then I cut out all the wool/cotton bits for the side borders of Homegrown (another Spargo…yeah, I enjoy making them), pinned them on, and am slowly stitching them all down. I won’t get this one done in 2025. Bet.

The embroidery will take forever and then I’ll put it in a pile for a year or two before deciding to quilt it. Let’s be real. It’s not about the finished product; it’s totally about the making.

In art quilt news, I’m still tracing Wonder Under…

The dirt was a lot of big pieces, and then I had a bunch of little pieces that fit in between all those big pieces.

I tried a bund of people and then started tracing gravestones. Right when those dumbasses passed a bill kicking a ton of real live people off Medicare. Including one I live with…yeah, it won’t take effect until after the November elections, and hopefully he’ll have a job by then, but there’s a lot of people who can’t work or can’t find work. So we aren’t taking care of people any more unless they’re so rich they don’t really need to worry about it.

Last night, I made it into the low 600s…of 1366.

Not even halfway. I was hoping to be done with tracing today, but I would have had to be way more focused than I have been for that to happen. So maybe that’s the other thing I’m doing today. I’m still only on the second yard of Wonder Under…lots of small pieces to drive me nuts later.

My little quilt made it to my SIL for her birthday.

I love the location.

I lost the dog in the ferns…he likes to pee in there.

Really, this is yet another part of the yard I need to control. Ha! This yard is beyond my ability. I’d need a gardener and even then…

I found these guys (screamed a little because a bunch were on my shirt) while trimming shit.

They become some kind of beetle. But for now, they are in the greenery trash can.

I saw this…and yes, I feel like I need that but also, no I’m not doing that.

I’m putting it here for when I’m really old and retired and maybe bored (will I ever be bored?). That dissociative state is looking nice.

Although honestly, making art helps with that. And it’s too hot for sweatpants, but the other night, I found myself tracing Wonder Under with shorts and a tank top on, but also fuzzy socks, because my feet were cold. Love old body. It’s so inconsistent.

This.

So frustrating. Incredibly.

Simba after three hours of fireworks on THURSDAY night (not even the 4th, y’all). He barked the entire time. And I was tracing stuff, so I wasn’t making him feel safe.

Last night, he was better…only a little. Mostly because the boychild was back. For how long? We never know. His sister is coming to visit, so if previous years are anything to go by, he’ll be sent to some fire this week.

This is amazing. This is Liberty Bleeds by Niki McQueen.

I wish I had enough wall space for her work (it’s available as posters to benefit the ACLU)…it reminds me of my own stuff, the cutting open part.

I think Nova is the big softie that both Luna and Bowie turn to for love and safety.

Luna is so paranoid. And it’s hot, so it’s funny when they curl up together, because I’m like, don’t fucking touch me, it’s hot. And yet there’s always a cat or a dog (or both) next to me.

This is always true.

So yeah. I think I already decided I’m piecing things and tracing things today. The Man has a show tonight downtown, so I’m probably riding the trolley down and then getting a ride back. Their regular lead singer has ‘quit’ (we hope not permanently), so they’re borrowing a singer from another band. Should be interesting. Luckily they are the opening band, so it’s not a midnight thing. I’m too old for that stuff? That’s a lie; I happily stay up past midnight doing art things. I just don’t like mornings. My goal for the week? Be chill. Stay chill. Make the things. Find the supplies for next week. So excited for next week. Meal planning now. And making sure I have materials. I don’t want to get up there and realize I need one chemical I left at home. Inevitably I will forget something though. Truth. 33 days until school. I can’t find a countdown timer that works with the iphone widget or whatever they’re calling it now. Frustrating. That and the ironing board problem are an issue for another day though. Right now, I need to eat, shower, and do some stuff that refills the cup. Or something. Finds the spoons.

It Seems Like Enough…

I know, I know, I’m writing super late. I worked this morning. And afternoon. And I didn’t want to get up super early, so I got the photos resized for the post and that was it. And then I did more work when I got home. So here I am, remembering I was supposed to write today. Which pretty much sums up Summer Break for a teacher. Yes, I did teacher stuff today. My co-teacher and I usually try to plan during the summer, just to get a handle on things we want to change for next year. Sometimes we get paid, but we aren’t this year. I think. Who knows? New principal. No one has a clue what’s going on. We’re backwards planning to make sure we have time to teach natural selection and evolution, the last unit, and then revising the first two units…three units. Well, we’re not gonna get all that done in two 4-hour sessions, for sure. But we’ll have a pretty good start.

So the weekend…I worked on the drawing…finishing up the bottom part on Friday night.

Mostly anyway. Then Saturday evening, I put some planets in the sky…

Bowie was absolutely no help.

Last night, I finished up some stuff around the planets and called it done, although I may change my mind about that tonight.

And then I started numbering, but I didn’t finish.

I knew I had to get up in the morning, so staying up until 2 AM writing numbers would be a bad plan, right? Don’t ask Summer Brain…they’re like all in with Art Brain and don’t give a shit that I can’t sleep in. So I was going to finish numbering this afternoon and totally that hasn’t happened. But maybe after I finish this.

I also finished the binding and sleeves on this during my local SAQA Zoom meeting…

Shitty picture, I know. Ah well. Need a place to hang it up now.

On Saturday, I also finished a present for my SIL…in October or so last year, to test the new Wonder Under, I made a small flying heart. She saw in online and asked for it for Christmas, but like finished, you know. A thing. So I said yes and then promptly lost it. I didn’t really lose it. I hung it up in my studio/office and then hung a drawing up in front of it, so I couldn’t see it and forgot it was there. For like three months. I found it in January when I took the drawing down…not right away though…it took me a few weeks before I saw it. Then I figured, oh, I’ll give it to her for her July birthday, so instead of making something out of it like right then (like a sane person), I procrastinated until Saturday and then finished it.

I mailed it today. It’ll be late. Ah well.

Saturday was also the wedding of a coworker to one of my former students. Weird, huh? Here’s all the teachers…

The bride is younger than my daughter. I’m laughing because Stace is grabbing my ass. She’s smirking in the back. We did not all plan to wear blue and green. Seriously.

And here’s one of my former 7th graders, now a nice young man who cried during the ceremony, making him one of my favorite guys forever.

Seriously…raise your boys to be able to cry at emotional events.

I did some ceramics stuff on Friday…more painting.

I keep breaking things off dammit. So I’m trying to get it all underglazed before more breaks. Not sure when I’m going in again. Tomorrow? Hopefully…if I’m not as braindead as I was today after lesson planning for four hours.

That’s too true.

I love this.

There’s so much negative shit out there right now. I love the little bits of fuck off I see happening. Because I just got my measles booster because of that idiot.

OK, normally this is where I’d say what I’m doing for the rest of the day, but it’s 6 PM and I just fed the dog. I might go do some yardwork because it’s cooled off a little. I did some digging (against the gophers) yesterday. Need more gravel to fix what they did. Sigh. Should probably water first. I’ll be numbering shit tonight and then hopefully starting to trace. It would be nice if I was done with tracing and trimming by Monday, and then ironed to fabric by the time I leave for my residency. Taking stuff to trim is always a good thing. I can’t think beyond that. I want to finish my book? Probably not happening tonight. But soon. Oh I entered a residency for next summer…hopeful?! I think that’s it. It seems like enough, doesn’t it?

A Lot of Pieces

Ooof. Well I am starting to function. Maybe. I was at ceramics yesterday and it was busy and I had forgotten my headphones, so I couldn’t completely dissociate, plus whenever there are people there, they always want to talk about my piece, which is taking FOREVER. I’m getting closer to done with the upper torso piece though. Lots of underglazing, because everything has to be painted three times for good coverage. It takes forever. And I’m not that great a painter, so I have to clean up a lot of the fussy little stuff.

Yesterday, I started with all the things that I thought would be white, moved into gray, then blue, then had to touch up red because of all that. Today, I think I’ll finish those two guys on the right arm and maybe move onto green? We’ll see.

And I broke the hand off again, then two fingers. It’s just very fragile at the moment.

I’ve been drawing every night, trying to get this thing to where I want it. Which I don’t know where that is, so that’s part of the problem. I’ve been penciling stuff in most of the time, because of overlaps and not being sure how things will fit together.

That flag has some tiny pieces in it. There’s some inking or embroidery that’s going to need to happen.

Definitely put the ICE agents in a swamp of their own making. Added some stuff up above.

The sky and the dirt are my current hold ups.

Although less dirt now.

Getting closer. So many pieces though. It wouldn’t be a summer quilt if it didn’t have a lot of pieces.

I’m still cleaning the office, sorting through stuff, trying to finish things. I’m trying to get all the flowers appliqued onto the outer borders…

Not even halfway. But closer than I was. It’s just time-consuming, but not in a bad way. I pretty much only work on it when I’m on a Zoom call or when I’m done with dinner and watching one show with the Man. Hence the slow. I am close to needing to trace and cut out the two side borders worth of flowers. That’s progress.

Bowie keeps coming in the office to harass the old lady, but also to sit in the window.

He’s alternately a sweetheart and a teenaged terror.

There is a constant fight for the space on my left thigh…

It’s popular. Nova left (fear!) and Simba took over.

OK. Today is Friday. I will be back at ceramics this afternoon. I finally found the busy time schedule (there’s times when the lower cost level of member can come in…and it’s more busy because of that), so I’ll be avoiding those days/times if I can. I’m hoping to get this glazing done in the next week so I can get it fired. I might need to build it a base though, and then that would have to dry too. Hmmm. Should have asked for more clay yesterday. Oh well. I’m also applying for a real cohort-based residency for next summer. I was a little wiffly waffly about it until I watched the video of their application process and heard more about the space and the insights from the people who have gone…and now I really want to go, but it’s complicated. It’s not close and the timing is hard with school, which is always the issue. But I’m applying today. I am. So that means writing well-thought-out answers to questions. Ha! Maybe shouldn’t do that? Sigh. I entered a show yesterday and messed up the file names, so I have an email in for that. Sigh. Stupid. Didn’t read the fine print. Ah well, it’s a pretty easy fix, so there’s that. And the boychild is home…didn’t get sent to a big fire somewhere…yet. I’m sure it’s coming. Let Simba appreciate him for a few days more. It’s all good.